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Sony to charge $30 per 4k/HDR movie

xx4L0Mxx
Contributor

Sony to charge $30 per 4k/HDR movie

Sony Android TV's only, $30 ( Currently about £21 ) is to BUY a movie in 4K HDR, viewable from an Android App.

 

£21 seems steep, but The Force Awakens when released on Bluray in the UK will be about £15, so is the extra £6 cost fair or not?

 

Also, you pay for the Movie, yet it is streamed from online servers, so you don't actually own a physical copy, so in my book, It will be compressed to hell. I'm sure it WILL look spectacular, but surely it's not FULL 4k.  I did wonder how they were going to fit a 4k movie onto UHD Blurays, but streaming them seems like it will give even worse picture quality.

 

By my rough and ready non scientific maths, I have come to the conclusion that YouTube 4k content is compressed by about an eighth of the original 4K uncompressed footage.

 

Basically a very rough guide would be for native 4k - 1Minute of 4K video = 1GB download.

 

So obviously, as I doubt Sony are going to let you stream a 250-300GB movie everytime you want to watch it, it has to be compressed....by a lot.

 

What do you guys think?

 

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/sony-to-charge-30-per-4k-movie.html

 

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/30/sonys-4k-movie-streaming-will-cost-30-a-film.html

 

EDIT :

 

I should actually point out that if my experience of pricing from Sony between the US Playstation store and the European Playstation store is anything to go by, the current £21 exchange rate figure above, will actually read more like £30 per movie in the UK if the service arrives over here.

 

 

 

 

2 REPLIES 2
profile.country.GB.title
Jonnie1266
Contributor

Completely agree :thumbsup:

 

I have been promoting physical media over streaming services for years. Besides, not everyone (including myself) in the UK has access to superfast broadband. Customers need to be better educated about the actual quality they have purchased. What is the point of promoting full HD or 4K Ultra HD if it is to be overly compressed for streaming purposes. It is not just the picture quality but also the audio that suffers. If I shell out on a 4K television and sound system I pretty much want the "full" experience. It is only in Japan where Sony still promote optical discs and blu-ray recording devices, no doubt the next generation of Ultra HD recording devices also. This is because they know we favour streaming over quality. Panasonic have released an Ultra HD player / recorder in Japan already, we are to get the player version only - at least for now.

 

Come on everybody, if you want the so called cinema experience in your living room STOP streaming and demand discs, players, recorders and sound systems like we used to !

 

Regards


If it ain't broke don't fix it
Anonymous
Not applicable

I personally would rather a physical disc for that price.  A quick snapshot of Amazon UHD movies (not the mastered in 4k !)

 

As you can see, some are 4K and some are 4K +HDR

 

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